Guerino: Why? 'Tis but two singles on the left, two on the right,three doubles
forward, a traverse of six round: do this twice, three singlesside, galliard trick of
twentie, curranto pace: a figure of eight, three singles brokendown, come up,
meete, two doubles fall backe, and then honour.

Aurelia: O Dedalus! thy maze, I have quite forgot it.

( John Marston, The Malcontent, iv. i. 65)

Guerino's complicated directions and Aurelia's bemused reactionsuggest that
an onlooker might have had great difficulty in seeing thisparticular dance as
a model of celestial order. Yet in the songs of Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue
Jonson takes up the very image used by the bewildered Aurelia to communicate a sense of the beautiful orderliness of set masque dances and the revels. Daedalus describes the the intricate choreography of the dance as being like
his maze, an artefact with the potential to instruct and delight:

Then, as all actions of mankind
are but a Laborinth, or maze,
so let your Daunces be entwin'd,
yet not perplex men, vnto gaze.
But measur'd, and so numerous too,
as men may read each act you doo.
And when they see ye' Graces meet,
admire ye wisdom of your feet.
For Dauncing is an exercise
not only shews ye mouers wit,
but maketh ye beholder wise,
as he hath powre to rise to it.(ll. 261-72)

We may interpret -- or 'read' -- the complex and subtle figures of the dance as
emblems of alert and virtuous social action. Regrettably, the setting is lost, but
the accomplishment of the verse itself gives a kind of authority to the singer's
statements about intelligent artifice. This fine poem is typical of the largest and
most important group of masque songs -- songs which introduce the dances.

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